Marie Krásová

"Ten or more people always came to the village and scattered in pairs around the village. They were mostly workers from the Škoda factory, so it was said. We had a big gate and a small gate next to it. They came and there were two of them standing behind the gate. 'Is anyone home?' we heard. We [children] were looking out of the window. Dad came and asked them what they wanted. 'We want to persuade you to go to the cooperative farm, to give your land to the cooperative.' Dad said, 'Wait, I'll be right there.' He went into the cow barn, grabbed a pitchfork and was carrying the pitchfork like this against the gate. The wicket had spokes at the top, you could see through. 'Get out of here or I'll stick it in you!' They started to threaten him, Dad pushed the pitchfork through [the gate] and they left. They were gone."

"One day in early spring, my dad went to plough, he was going to do something in the fields and he was supposed to stay there longer. In the morning he left and in an hour he was back with the manure wagon, a wagon that had wooden fronts and plank sides. He drove off with it and we were looking out the windows when we saw it come. We hurried to the door. They sent us inside, so we were looking out the window. And because we were a little higher up, we could see that there was straw in the wagon and that somebody was in there. Suddenly, a man got out of the wagon. Dad left with him. Then we found out that he had hidden him in the barn. He came home and said: 'Well, children, you didn't see anything, it's a gentleman, he got sick.' Finally we learned that he had escaped from Prague, from where I don't know anymore, but he escaped from the German commando. They were chasing him, chasing even more people. He managed to cross Mladá Boleslav, [he ran] through the fields, through the woods, and was hiding in the willows. Dad let the Pánek family know and someone came for him. So they led him to the partisans."

"I was once - well, that was actually the end of the war - ordered to pasture goslings in a meadow about 400 metres from the house. So I was looking after the goslings and suddenly I see someone running from our garden, it was Dad. He was waving his arms, shouting, I didn't understand. I ran to meet him and Dad, for the first time I saw him having tears in his eyes, he was shouting, 'The war is over! Pick flowers! And choose them white, red, blue!' I said, 'Why these?' 'Daisies, bluebells, poppies, because these are our national colours. And we're going to put the flowers on the flag we put up.'"

"Towards the end of the war, convoys of armed tanks with soldiers sitting on them, armed with rifles and sub-machine guns, were going through Kněžmost from Sobotka to Mnichovo Hradiště. And they were escorting a column of the German inhabitants, the Germans who were settled in the borderlands that they had taken from us, and they were running away. They were running west, running away from the Red Army. And we as children used to play outside. There were about seven or eight of us at the neighbours' house at that time, they had a pastry shop. And there was a little place, and we were shouting, running around. And there was the convoy passing by. And we already knew that the Germans had lost it, that they were running away, and we didn't know any wiser than to wave and laugh and mock at them. So one of them - I don't know if it was one or two- started shooting. I think the bullet holes are still there to this day, in that house, in Kněžmost. Mrs. Pažoutová ran out of the shop, she had three children among us, she pulled us in, she chased us inside and there... The nicest thing she said was: 'Stupid!'. She slapped us, we didn't even realize what we had been doing."

"I knew there was a mobilisation because people were always talking about it. Then when it was dissolved, the army, the soldiers were going back home, and because they didn't have money, they were going by foot. One soldier also stopped by our place, stayed overnight and again - he was from Moravia, my mother gave him food to take with him. And I think there were two of them. That there was another one who slept there. But the atmosphere, it was - even as a small child I felt that something terrible was happening. People were crying, it wasn't nice."